April 14, 2022
Day 2: Markranstadt-Quedlinburg
Telco Bait and Switch
As with most new tourist arrivals, our visit to this country could not really begin until the matter of SIM cards cards would be resolved. So Jurgen and I left Dodie arranging our bikes and luggage while we strode out to downtown Markranstadt in search of Vodaphone.
Two points of clarification: 1. Markranstadt is the suburb of Leipzig where Jurgen and Birgit live, and where we will be staying until We pedal off on Sunday. Markranstadt is not a suburb exactly in the North American sense, but is more like its own real town that just happens to be 15 km from Leipzig. And 2. When I say Dodie was arranging our bikes and luggage, I mean the scene looked like this:
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I should also mention that before any striding or arranging could happen, it was German breakfast time. And within German breakfast time was brotchen, of various types. Putting aside any eggs, cheese, wurst, fruit, etc. that might be included, it is the bread, or brotchen, that is our favourite thing. So quite before all the other wonderful things that came up today, Brotchen already nailed down the Favourite Thing of the Day crown:
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2 years ago
Before heading to town, I did some internet research about prepaid SIMS. I looked at the offerings of Vodaphone, O2, T-Mobile, and some of the lesser suppliers, like LIDL. Also, Jurgen subscribes to the magazine "Connect", and their latest edition has a review of prepaid offerings. I reviewed that too. So my approach was fairly serious, and we headed out to Vodaphone because their deals looked most reasonable. What I was then after was a fairly simple (on their website) looking 8 gB for €14.99 and 6 gb for €9.99. I would put one in one smart phone, to help with Booking on the road, and one in the laptop, to help with the blog when there would be poor or no wifi.
The Markranstadt local Vodaphone shop for some reason had no prepaid to sell. So we jumped in the car and headed off to the giant Nova shopping centre, 6 km out of town. This was the first of it kind to be built after reunifiction, and I expect it has also grown, because it was large, and suitably west Germanly glitzy. It currently has 160 shops. (Ok, ok, the West Edmonton mall - largest in Canada - has 800 shops! Mall of America (largest in USA) has 520).
At Vodaphone in Nova, nothing was simple. They began by declaring that anything I may have seen online was online only - a common scam. The actual offerings were skimpier, and trickier. To boil down one hour of discussion (with Jurgen as man in the middle between me and the non-English speaking sales agent) the cell phone got 5 gB of data for €14.99 monthly, and they seemed to charge 15 euros for the physical SIM while selling it with a 15 euro credit. And it's possible that I could get a 3 gB special gift through their app once downloaded, presumably for one month only. As for the laptop, they claimed I needed their special laptop SIM, offering something totally lame like 5 gB for for €34.99! In addition, they not only wanted a German address, but they scanned my passport and had me sign electronically three times to lock in their ability to drain my euros credit card over the coming months.
I stomped out with one SIM only, but I did better than the lady who was just ahead of us. Here was our first encounter with the Ukraine situation, for the lady was from Ukraine, and was tripped up by the passport requirement. What she had for a passport was something that did have a photo but the rest was hand written in Cyrillic alphabet. The high tech Germans could not scan such a thing, and gave her the boot. So much for special refugee assistance, at least from Vodaphone!
Meanwhile my SIM is lightening fast, but Dodie is trying to decree that it is only for doing Booking on the road. Still, I am likely to be reading Cycleblaze while parked with the bikes outside of grocery stores. It would however do me good to stay away from the Ukraine news.
Juergen and I found Dodie and Birgit seated at a bakery in the mall. My head, still swimming from the Vodaphone tricks, needed a latte and a erdberen schnitte. The schnitte was ok, but not the greatest. Research will have to continue on that score!
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2 years ago
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Our main target for the day was Quedlinburg, which is a town on the eastern edge of the Harz mountain eco preserve. The western edge basically corresponded to the GDR boundary, and was a forbidden zone from which the Red Army peered down on the West. But Harz is apparently also stuffed with witches, and was the stomping ground of Hansel and Gretel. Also at nearby Thale the witches do a lot of dancing and flying, on Walpurgis Nacht in April, which stems from Goethe and Faust. (And that is all I know about Thale!)
Quedlinburg is an extensive medieval preserved town, equal to any in Germany. It is stuffed with cobble streets and half timbered houses. This is not a theme park, it's a working town, but watch out, it is thronged at Christmas Market time.
We stopped at a restaurant in Quedlinburg, and naturally got dark panelling and stained glass surroundings. But importantly we blew away Julie Andrew's schnitzel with noodles by getting schnitzel with spargel, with noodles. Spargel is white asparagus, which is in season now. You could go out for spargel dishes alone, and dump the schnitzel, but this was the full meal deal!
We walked all over Quedlinburg, stopping to sample what was touted as Germany's oldest and best cheesecake. It was ok, but I think I can do better. They did, however, claim to have 193 flavours. We got raspberry/pomegranate and orange/whiskey.
The final bonus came as we were trudging back toward the car. An old man (i.e. someone our age) was walking in the same direction, and he passed an idle comment about some aspect of a building we passed. From there he proceeded to tell us many many things about the various buildings. It turns out, if I got the story right, that he was a retired archeologist who worked for years among ruins in Turkey. He chose this town to retire to, because of its authentic preserved history. The photos below describe just a few of the things that were included in our impromptu lessons.
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The Harz witches theme was strongly carried by one shop, with wild meat products like venison sausage, and witches liqueurs. There were also cycling maps of the Harz region, which were very tempting.
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2 years ago
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I am still really confused about the difference between the apparent online offerings and the package "deals" on cardboard cards hanging in the shop. I am unclear, for instance, the extent to which in the shop I was buying the physical SIM, or the service, or somehow both.
Also the Playstore would not allow me to download the Vodaphone app, claiming it was not available "in my country". Web research showed I would have to create a dummy Google account and somehow use a VPN to get the darn thing. Why??
Oh, and a final random rant: As soon as physically installed, the Vodaphone SIM was demanding a PIN, which is found in the package materials, and it wanted this on every restart. Three errors, and you are locked out of the SIM, and thereby the phone. But there is a second PIN, of more digits, that can override the lockout. Do I need such noise in my brain?? I did finally find a way to shut that all off, in the Android setup.
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